Frankenstein

Rating:
Summary: I've read better...like Berenstein Bears
Review: This was the dullest book I have ever read in my entire existence. The theme behind this book is excellent, but the writing is quite dry and wordy. Who ever named this so-called Story a Classic is not someone I would like to meet. Only the theme kept this book from being a ONE

Rating:
Summary: Read it for the concepts, not the writing
Review: What does God owe us, his Creation? What are the responsibilities of parents towards their children? How should society treat its homeless, creations of its own policies? What happens when scientists (or even entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, politicians) pursue a single-minded goal of glory and wonder without stopping to think on the consequences?

All of these interesting and relevant issues are raised in this plodding, poorly written work. The standards of interesting writing may have changed in the last hundreds of years, but some writers and poets are skilled enough with language that their work still endures. Don't be misled by the hype; Mary Shelley should not be remembered for her literary skill. I hope that no schoolchildren actually have to read this. There are enough great works that are enjoyable to read. Frankenstein should be classified as a work of philosophy, not one of literature.

Rating:
Summary: A truly classic original horror tale.
Review: In "Frankenstein" Mary Shelly has created not only one of the most enduring of Gothic stories, but also a uniquely feminine tale of the horror of childbirth and its attendent responsibilities.

While the later film versions of the story have tended to couch the telling of this story in terms of scientific over-reaching and the hubris of man who aspires to the powers of God, the original novel actually contains very little of this theme, with the famous creation scene actually occuring in one terse paragraph. There are no spark shedding electrodes or arcing bolts of electricity in Shelly's original story, only the birth of the creature, and Frankenstein's rejection of his monsterous offspring.

It's hard to read "Frankenstein" without recognizing it's author as a young woman who had suffered at least one miscarriage. The entire work, although written from a masculine perspective, and set in a world of masculine domination, consistently deals with themes of parental abandonment and responsibiltity. The sin of Frankenstein in Shelly's original work is not his aspiration to godlike power over life and death, but his refusal to regard his artifical progeny with the nurturing and unconditional love any parent owes to his or her child.

For fans both of later cinematic retellings of this story, as well as fans of the Gothic novel and those interested in reading a true nightmare myth of feminine construction, "Frankenstein" is a true classic that cannot be reccommended highly enough.

Rating:
Summary: Simply the most titanic novel written in English
Review: Frankenstein is a startlingly deep investigation of humanity's place in the world. The reader must sympathize with either Frankenstein or his creation, and and either choice will result in the same humbling realization: that humans are too fragile to exist within their own constructs of society, honor, dignity and truth. -JC Vollmer

Rating:
Summary: Hear the monster's side of the story, very well written
Review: There are many stories that have used the Frankenstein electrical reanimation plot, no matter how unbelievable. This is very well written, as a journal by the monster himself. This is definitely one for those books you will have trouble putting down. An Extra note: There is a reference that the Francis Ford Coppola movie was based on Saberhagen's book but it is not; it is true to the original of Mary Shelley

Rating:
Summary: One of the most beautiful story of all time
Review: Persons think that Frankenstein is a little horror show like the old movies that were made. But the orignial Frankenstein is not a simple horror story but a great, sentimental story about a monster who wants to be like anyone else but his look doesn't give to him the possibility to be happy. He will fight his creator to punish him for the monster he'd done

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, nothing like the movies!!!!!
Review: The novel starts a bit on the slow side,but as chapters progress and you become aquainted with Frankenstein's creation it will be difficult to put the book down. For a great work of horror fiction, the book has some pleasantly surprising moments. In particular when Frankenstein's creature speaks to his maker and compares himself to Adam who has been abandoned by God. The moment is very touching, and made me feel pity and sorrow for the "monster" who never asked to be brought into the world

Rating:
Summary: Frankenstein Rev.
Review: Frankenstein is a very inventive story. That is a must for any horror story fanatic. The mid-section of the book drags just a little (little too repetitive), but all and all it's a very good book. I could go on, but i dont feel like it. The books ok, i gave it 4 stars ..just ..because. read it u want to, if u dont want to, then dont ...whatever.

Rating:
Summary: A classic reading experience
Review: All my life I have heared and seen movies about Dracula, Frankenstein and Dr. Jekell and Mr. Hyde. Normally I do not read horror/ science fiction but I was curious about these three and decided to find out how these literary characters attained such long lasting lives. The time spent reading the three books was worth it. It was an entertaining cultural experience.
I'll leave it to the experts to try to tell you why they are classics. I don't know, but if you are always short on time, like I am, my order of preference is as listed in the first sentance above.

Rating:
Summary: The Modern Prometheus
Review: Popular culture would have us believe that Frankenstein is a hulking green cartoonish character, while in reality, Frankenstein is actually the name of the man who created the monster. Having read Mary Shelley's classic for a British Literature class, I feel that it is a shame that the majority of the population has a misrepresentation of Frankenstein.

Prometheus is a figure in Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man, and was punished by Zeus for it. Victor Frankenstein is quite young when he goes abroad to study and becomes obsessed with the occult side of science, ambitiously desiring to overcome death. Victor also desires to have a race worship him as creator, and in his ambition he feverishly toils, robbing graves and laboratories to build his monstrous creation, which he fashions to be beautiful. Upon completing his work, the fever that has led Victor on immediatly flees, and he sees his work as a monster, and runs terrified from it. This creature is infinitely more terrifying and horrible than the one described by popular culture--"...I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!--Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horried contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips."
Frankenstein abandons his monster, and returns home, tortured by what he has created. After several misfortunes befall Frankenstein, he again meets the creature, who, we learn, has become eloquent and learned, but, scorned by every human, has become bitter and vengeful toward Frankenstein. He appeals to Frankenstein to make him a companion, or he will destroy Frankenstein and those he loves.
The rest of the novel follows Victor as he struggles with this decision, and as more misfortunes befall him.

Different types of readers will find sympathy with different characters. I myself found little sympathy for Frankenstein; his selfish ambition and ensuing cowardice and rationalization render him utterly pathetic in my mind. There is some ambiguity as to whether the creature is simply a misunderstood being, or whether he really is a malicious devil as our somewhat unreliable narrator tells us. What a reader chooses to believe will determine the themes that reader derives from the novel.

Frankenstein could be seen as a charge against vain amibtion, or it could be seen as an account of man's inability to act as God. I myself felt that Mary Shelley was perhaps questioning God's relationship to man, a plausible explanation considering that Mary Shelley's husband was Percy Shelley, who got kicked out of Oxford for distributing an atheist pamphlet. What, exactly, is a creator's responsibility to his work? To whom do the boundaries of ethics apply? Who is the real monster, Frankenstein's creature or people who unfeelingly reject him? These are only a slice of the themes that intersect Shelley's novel, which is much more than a campy horror story. Frankenstein is a solid read that should not be overlooked by the modern reader, for it contains messages relevant to to us.